Holiday Card Re-Use

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Jenn

Every year when I take down the Christmas decorations I am always so sad to throw away (recycle) the holiday cards.  This is especially true when we go away for the holiday and don’t get to spend as much time looking at them.  My aunt has been known to take old holiday cards, tear off the top part with the picture and use them as postcards to invite people to their annual January Full Moon Party/Bonfire.  This year, I decided to take her idea, and use the holiday cards as thank you postcards.  I hope everyone likes them!

Thank you to all of our friends and family for their many generous gifts.  We enjoyed catching up with everyone in Florida, and are happy to be back home, cuddled up in the cold.

Posted in Christmas, Recycling | 1 Comment

Hopes for 2012

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Jenn

After reviewing my Hopes for 2011 and recapping about them, I’m ready to put my hopes for 2012 out there into the universe.

COMPOSTING:
Get back in to it and get serious about doing it all the time, not just when it’s convenient.  My Secret Santa gifted me a lovely canister for next to the sink that has a nice filter.  My old stinky Tupperware just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  If you’re looking for one, this is a nice example, as is this larger version (which is the one I have, I think).  There is also one from this Etsy Shop that is super cute, but pricey, albeit hand painted.  The stuff really piles up fast and it makes you see how much you are throwing in a landfill, needlessly.  I need to do some research on additional things I can compost, such as coffee grounds, tea bags, coffee filters, tissues, dryer lint and so on.

RECYCLING:
Become a more active, and less lazy, recycler.  Start bringing home my yogurt containers and microwave meal trays, etc, from work.  Walk the empty toilet paper roll from the bathroom to the recycling bin, instead of tossing it in the trash.  Make sure NO PAPER goes in to the trash can, including mail, daily status reports from daycare, once a day calendar pages, etc.  I’ve finally bothered to look on my town’s website to see what I can recycle to make sure I’m doing all I can.  I’d also like to do a better job of shopping with conservation in mind, always bringing my reusable bags and continuing to not buy things with excessive packaging.  I hope to use less zip lock bags, now that I have these.  I’m also hoping to use less paper towels by keeping a stack of wash clothes in the kitchen for cleaning off M’s face and hands after eating.

GARDENING:
Plant one again this year.  We added two new raised beds at the end of the season, so we should be good to go when it’s time to plant again!

YOGA:
Keep on the path I’m on.  Keep cultivating my home practice.  Keep studying the philosophy and incorporate it in to my daily, off the mat, life.  Have more compassion for myself and for others, my family included.  Don’t react as much without mindfulness.  Graduate as a certified yoga teacher, even if I don’t ever teach a class.  Don’t get down on myself if I don’t ever teach a class.

EATING/COOKING:
I’ll be attending this 3-month online workshop (with my mom!) on whole food eating/cooking.  It’s run by someone who completed the Yoga Teacher Training at my studio and my studio will be holding four support meetings.  I’m nervous because I anticipate it will be very challenging, but I’m really excited too!  And how awesome that my mom is doing it too?!  I’ve been scaling back big time on my sugar intake, and now that R works everyday he snacks a lot less.  I’ve cut down on our meat intake at dinnertime, I’ve stopped having milk in my cereal by switching to almond milk, and I’ve swapped out yogurt for soy faux-gurt.  We’ve both lost some weight during the last few months!  I think this seminar will only help to further improve our eating!  Don’t get me wrong, we still eat the heck out of some tacos and pizza (both homemade).

FAMILY & LIFE:
Be more present with M.  No more playing Words with Friends when she’s awake!  Continue to be amazed by all the cool things she learns everyday.  Dance, Dance, Dance, and Sing, Sing, Sing.  Realize that even though my husband is one of the only people who will let me take it out on him, doesn’t mean I should take it out on him.  Focus my life on learning, loving, laughing and living.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted in Gardening, Life, Yoga | 2 Comments

2011 Book List

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Jenn

1. Lamb by Christopher Moore (my book club pick)

2. The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow (Colleen’s Book Club)

3. What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg (Jenna’s Book Club)

4. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall (Heather’s Book Club)

5. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (Kristine’s Book Club)

6. Nothing is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn by Alice Mattison

7. The Doctor’s Wife by Elizabeth Brundage

8. Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen (Stefania’s Book Club)

9. Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman (Courtney’s Book Club)

10. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell (Kate’s Book Club)

11. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

12. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (2nd book in the Hunger Games series)

13. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (3rd book in the Hunger Games series)

14. A Dog’s Purpose: A Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron (My Book Club)

15. The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho (Colleen’s Book Club)

16. Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression by Brooke Shields

17. The Position by Meg Wolitzer (Stefania’s Book Club)

Posted in Book Club, Reading | 4 Comments

Hopes for 2011 Recap

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Jenn

Here we go again.  Another year has almost passed us by already!

Last year, I refrained from making resolutions, but instead documented some personal hopes for the year.

Let’s recap 2011:

– My $100, year-long gym membership went unused, as I felt guilty for picking M up from daycare any later than I absolutely had to, and I got stuck at work well past 3pm some days.  I went a few times in January/February but it just tapered off after that.  I’m ok with that though.

– Yoga: Well, I didn’t go once a week like I had hoped to.  However, I did take a big leap this summer by committing to a 10-month, 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training course which began in September 2011 and will end in June 2012.  We meet one weekend a month and practice and learn ALL weekend!  As of the December weekend I can do wheel!  With this, I’ve also begun to cultivate a home practice.   I’ve been reading some amazing books that go along with this course (they won’t show on the 2011 book list because I won’t be finished reading them until 2012):
* Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates
* Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope
* The Bhagavad Gita translated by Eknath Easwaran

– Dog Walking: In preparation for the yoga teacher training, I started walking the dog like CRAZY (and doing lots of pushups at home and with my office-mate).  M and I took Izzie out every morning before work and every afternoon after work.  With that, and watching what I eat (no more sugar at work, stopped buying ice cream for the most part, no more sandwiches for lunch ) – I lost 10 lbs!  But, as the time changed, Miss M started sleeping later, which is fine with me, and we started missing out on our morning walks.  I have to be at work at 8am, so it’s hard to get it all done in the morning.  And I hate to wake her up early.  It’s been too dark in the evenings, and then the weather started turning colder . . . blah blah blah.  It was so great while it lasted, except for the whole picking up the dog’s poop in a bag thing.  That’s just gross.

– Garden: We planted one this year again!  We had lots of tomatoes, big and small.  We had our normal herbs, basil, etc.  This year we added my favorite – brussel sprouts.  The plants grew beautiful, but the brussels never really sprouted.  What a bummer.  We’ll try again in 2012.

– Sing and Dance with my Kiddo: Wahoo – this one was so successful. She loves to listen to music and we love to dance and be silly with her.

Bring on 2012!

Posted in Life, Yoga | Leave a comment

Elmo!

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Jenn

Our very awesome friends Jen & Ryan came over last Friday for wings and pizza.  I mentioned that Miss M loves Elmo even though she doesn’t watch him on TV, and doesn’t own an Elmo.  She even says “Elmo!”  So, they brought her an Elmo, or three.  And some fun Elmo Christmas books! Miss M is in heaven with her new Elmo friends.

This one sings La La La when you squeeze his belly.  She’ll bring it over to you and then sing La La La along with him!

Posted in Friends, Miss M. | Leave a comment

Musical Christmas Card

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Jenn

I always kind of wondered who buys musical Christmas cards?  And who really gets a kick out of receiving them?  And . . . now I know.

Posted in Miss M. | 1 Comment

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Jenn

Miss M wants to do everything herself lately.  She wants to the one to shut the bedroom and bathroom door.  She wants to be the one to flip the light switch on or off.  She wants to be the one to shut the fridge door while I’m making lunches, even if I am still getting things out.  She wants to hold everything, her lunchbox, the keys, her jacket.  She sees me put my hat on, she wants to put my hat on.

There is no more neatly spooning yogurt or applesauce in to her tiny mouth for her.  Now she must do it herself, and she’s less than tidy.  But it’s so fun to watch her work hard at mastering something new.

Here she is balancing all of her utensils.

 

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Why Do Good?

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Jenn

My office has a reputation for putting out pretty cool holiday cards.  Some of them take some pretty significant time to develop – think a couple hundred hours for the interactive game.  This year, we decided to take that time and put it toward something more charitable.  But we still wanted to include something a little creative for the holiday message in our e-newsletter, so we were all asked to submit an image, not necessarily a photograph, of what doing good means to us.  At first I had no idea how to represent that feeling visually.  Then, I asked myself, what are the reasons that I do good?  And one of them was: I do good things with the hope of instilling that feeling of generosity and caring in my daughter, like my parents did for me.

And so, I used this photo for the card this year:

Why do you do good?

Posted in Family, Life, Work | 1 Comment

Same, Same but Different

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Jenn

Just before M was born, someone turned me on to this awesome blog by illustrator Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw.  Her stuff is so beautiful.  My mom ordered invites to my baby shower from her card store and rumor has it Miss M will be getting one of these for Christmas.  She has two super cute books out and just did a giveaway for the most recent book called Same, Same but Different.  And guess who won a signed copy?!

What a great dedication!

The author's daughter helped decorate the packaging.

Posted in Miss M., Reading | Leave a comment

Favorite Blanket

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Jenn

We have some absolutely beautiful quilts that were made just for M, but unfortunately I think they are just a little too bulky for her crib right now.  In the meantime, she’s loving this blanket that my Great Aunt made for her.  So that’s her Great Great Aunt!

Posted in Miss M. | 2 Comments